As some of you know, Ryan Conrad and I are part of the editorial collective of Against Equality, a web-based archive of material that interrogates the mainstream gay movement and explores queer possibilities for a radical new future. While the internet offers seemingly endless possibilities for movement-building, it is limited in its access and while web-based conversations can be a starting point, they are no substitute for real-time conversations and organizing. For these and other reasons, we felt it was important to distribute the material as a book as well. Also, listen to us talk about the book on KBOO Radio with Denise from the Old Mole Variety Hour here! This show originally aired on March 22nd, 2010.

Our announcement and the beautiful and fabulous cover design by Chris Vargas after the jump.

The Against Equality editorial collective is excited to announce our first book project, Against Equality: Queer Critiques of Gay Marriage. This pocket-sized anthology of writing compiles many of the essays in the marriage section of our digital archives. We are self-publishing this book and it will soon be available through a small handful of independent distributors.

The essays will be published along side striking visuals specially commissioned for the anthology and our hope is that releasing them as a published book allows our critiques to reach a greater audience. The cultural lives of books are very different from that of online texts and the credibility that comes with printed matter still far exceeds the weight of blogging. We are also particularly interested in reaching people with little or no access to high speed Internet browsing like people in prison, older generations, and those living in rural areas.

Edited by Ryan Conrad and with an introduction by Yasmin Nair, this first book focused on gay marriage is just the beginning of our publishing projects! By making as many of the texts in our digital archives available in printed editions, we hope to create even more time and space to have critical dialog about our most radical queer futures and to revive the queer political imagination.

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The cultural lives of books are very different from that of online texts and the credibility that comes with printed matter still far exceeds the weight of blogging.

...but then you also write:

This pocket-sized anthology of writing compiles many of the essays in the marriage section of our digital archives.

and

We are self-publishing this book

So, in other words, if you're the sort of person who frequents an anarchist book store staffed by some 19-year-old guy with dyed black hair and a nose ring who plays the same CRASS album at full volume every single day, smells like patchouli oil, is convinced that his ideology will solve all the world's problems and has yet to realize that the aforementioned "radical future" will likely materialize around the same time as the second coming of Christ and the arrival of the Maitreya Buddha, then I'm sure you'll find this book very, very credible.

Thanks for the good wishes! And nah, I don't take these personally. It's clear that it's personal for them, although on what grounds I shall never know and....who wants to investigate those depths? :-)

That's excellent! And in case others are wondering: We've had a number of people insist that anyone who agrees with me or has similar politics is a "Yasminite." Hence Ryan's joke here. He's especially referring to a certain commenter who always jostles, like a bullying six-year-old, to be among the first to hurl abuse every time I post something.

That was a good way to start the day and the weekend, R - thanks again!

Yasmin and RConrad(you too Phil);
This aging Femme Lesbian Attorney, as establishment looking as it comes on the surface, still loves all of the writing that the three of you "Sexual anarchistic leftists" do.

haha! I don't think that Yasmin and Conrad would exactly put me in the same raft, but I think we all agree with one thing--we don't challenge and question enough in this community, and its ridiculous when those that do are shot down.

I love reading what Conrad and Yasmin write, and want to hear more from them because--though we don't agree on everything--I want to be challenged, because ALL of us hold beliefs we've never questioned, and we can't know that we're right, nor can we move on an issue until we open ourselves up to question those beliefs. These two make valid points, and if our organizations are going to continue pushing their current agendas, they're going to have to have answers to these questions. Good ones. Or change if they can't.

This organization and materials smack of cyber privilege promoted by persons afraid of relationships. It is also fueling the publishing industrial complex, and needlessly destroying trees. The inks used on the color cover will finally and once and for all kill Lake Erie, and the resultant fish kill will deprive the world of 672 species.

Finally, we gays do not need the "queers" to queerly critique our relationships. Your main gripe is that you want GAY money to be used for your agenda. Go raise your own. I do not know why Bilerico is so hypersensitive about the commentary relating to the Trans community, yet allows the "queer" community to so frequently trash the gay male community.

When Yasmin or Ryan post saying that being gay is a delusion, that gay sex is a perversion, that gay people are setting back social justice merely by having gay sex, and that gay people should all just marry someone of the opposite sex because it's not like everyone should be forced to accept their perversion, then we'll talk.

Otherwise, it really just seems like you're trivializing the insults the trans community receives from some cisLGB people.

It was an interesting interview. Contrary to what is suggested though, I have yet to hear any credible voice in the marriage movement claim that marriage was the be all, end all solution to social problems for gays or anyone else.

There is a lot of mainstream thought organizing around the idea that health care shouldn't be tied to employment. After the silly tea party season the idea that gay marriage is standing in the way of health/wellness reform is a little over the top.

Maybe hate crimes laws are redundant. At least the enhanced sentencing part, but if the law keeps a trans or gay basher from skipping out on punishment I'm ok with that.

Yes mandatory sentencing has gone way out of control. The sentencing disparity between powder and rock cocaine is demonstrably racist. What do we as a society do with a drug dealer who burns an entire family to death by blowing up their home while they sleep because the matriarch of the family was bold enough to say keep your drugs off my block?

Criminal justice reform, immigration reform, and foreign policy reform are surely discussions that need to be had. My wanting to get married or join the Marine Corps are not what is standing in the way of those discussions being had.

You are creating a tool for organizing against the gay and lesbian communities, rather than the elements of the majority culture which oppress us all. I wish you failure for your project against so many of your Bilerico audience.

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